The ever-growing critics' lobby against the Google Books settlement with the US Authors and Publishers Guild, for bringing digitized versions of copyrighted books, has yet another new participant - Amazon Inc.!

In its recent, strongly-worded, 41-page complaint filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Amazon has sent across a word of caution for the US District Judge Denny Chin, saying that in case the 10-month-old book settlement receives the court approval, it would clearly thwart potential competition.

Voicing a rather harsh criticism of the book settlement, Amazon said that the deal "creates a cartel of authors and publishers ... operating with virtually no restrictions on its actions, with the potential to raise book prices and reduce output to the detriment of consumers and new authors or publishers who would compete with the cartel members."

Amazon contended that the settlement violates federal antitrust laws, as it aims at establishing Google as the "exclusive distributor" of digital copies of the so-called 'orphan' works - comprising the copyrighted books of untraceable authors.

Though the Authors Guild executive director said that the Amazon complaint results from its fears that the deal would "upend its plans," more filings for and against the class-action deal are likely during the next few days, with the US Justice Department having scheduled most of the briefs in the case for September 18!